It's unclear what will happen. My only hope is that BTRFS continues (as I imagine it would). Because I'm looking forward to CRFS almost as much as BTRFS. Anything to kill NFS off for good.

As for the rest of Sun's tech, they can do whatever they'd like with it. We don't have any use for any of it here and I have no use for any of it at home. Java, Solaris, MySql, OpenOffice - I prefer the alternative software to all of those so them ceasing to be would be a good thing in my view. That won't happen though.

To Sun : Goodbye and good riddance. Your ideas were good but nothing but failure. Time to bow to a company who knows what they are doing.

To Oracle : Respect and listen to the community - Sun owning MySQL was taken with mixed reviews. You know how to make money, continue on that path and use the crowd to make your core (existing) product stronger. Sacrifice everything else to open source as Sun should have a LONG time ago.

To Boulder Colorado, 20 miles north of me : Sun was a bunch of puffed up crap just like Boulder. Put enough lies and Lysol on anything and people will think it don't stink.

Oh heavens Oracle doesn't care about open source! That means thousands of angry basement nerds might swear off using their software! Think of all the nasty slashdot posts they might get! They may even get a scolding from Richard Stallman Quixote!

How ever can Oracle not care when Sun has proven how valuable it is to sink billions into free software?

It's all open-source software, so theoretically even if Oracle doesn't want to support or pursue it anymore, I'm sure some niche folks will take it up run with it. Some folks out there don't like to see a lot of hard-work and effort go to waste. I think Sun was misguided, and had crazy ideas about how to make money by giving things away for free. StarOffice...really? Why would folks pay for that when they can get OpenOffice for free? Solaris? Again, why would they pay for that when Linux is free? I guess you pay for the support of a company that can stand behind the product (rather than just some folks cobbling something together), but really, that business model isn't looking so good. (Sorry Ubuntu/Canonical, I love you, but expecting to make money by just offering support & consulting services for a free product seems to be a death-wish business model.)

Originally posted by jus10:...As for the rest of Sun's tech, they can do whatever they'd like with it. We don't have any use for any of it here and I have no use for any of it at home. Java, Solaris, MySql, OpenOffice - I prefer the alternative software to all of those so them ceasing to be would be a good thing in my view. That won't happen though.

You should care - without valid competition, the alternatives you use have less reason to continue to improve.

Originally posted by tron_1:And what will happen to Sun's Hardware business? I like my SPARC processors. Will Oracle keep the architecture alive?

This somewhat sad news for me. I am a fan of Sun's hardware.

HP and Oracle have pretty strong ties. It wouldn't surprise me if Oracle decided to sell off Sun's entire hardware business to HP.

Well... that would kill it just as effectively as doing nothing but announcing it is DOA ASAP.

Oracle trying to run a hardware business strikes me as a bad idea, Oracle trying to take over Sun's hardware business in it's current state strikes me as an awful idea.

Oracle's business area is not one I have any expertise in or real connection to, but the marriage of Oracle + Sun strikes me as the shotgun wedding of two entirely alien species to each other ... so impossible it just makes me cringe.

There will be a massive exodus of talent from Sun. Oracle may in fact want that given that I can't see it continuing much of Sun's business lines. But why the heck would Oracle pay that much for Sun .... what do they get for their money?

I think of all things Sun, I will miss VirtualBox and MySQL the most. I hope neither will die under Oracle's care. I guess I would miss OpenOffice as well.

Oracle can't kill MySQL, even if they tried to. It's open source.

There was considurable disstaste after Sun's first MySQL release (plagued with problems, that even drove the Mysql-using folks to worry). So you know they did a really bad job of it.

The original founder of the company recruited a bunch of database engineers and formed "Monty Program ab" to create MariaDB. MariaDB is a project to create a 'crash proof' database.

Then there is Drizzle, which is a effort to create a database that will fit the needs of 'Web 2.0' developers with a highly scalable and highly parrallizable architecture. You know, for clustering and such.

Both of those are forks of MySQL.

And don't forget that MySQL isn't really a 'database' per-say. MySQL is now a sort of middleware that sits between applications and then the back end is a database engine plug-in architecture. So if you want a completely ACID database, you can have that. If you want a memory-only-optimized database, you can have that. If you want something that is cluster oriented you can have that too... each database backend is optimized for a specific purpose. Maria, MyISAM, and InnoDB are just one of dozens of options.

------------------------

However Oracle can easily ruin the suitability for people to use MySQL in their proprietary software.

Previously MySQL depended on a dual-licensed commercial model. If you used MySQL in a open source project then that was fine, use it under the GPL.. however if you produced proprietary software then you have to purchase a commercial license to use it.

So why it's not likely that MySQL being bought by Oracle will hurt open source people it will probably cause problems for people that want to build proprietary applications using MySQL.

In fact it will probably help out the open source side of things since MySQL-forks can now be developed easily using a distributed manner. Previously, in order to support their dual-licensed scheme, MySQL company required contributers to surrender their copyrights to the company. Since there is now no company to contribute to and since nobody but Oracle owns the copyrights then there is no chance of code contributed to MySQL forks from ever turning proprietary. This is a similar situation that the Linux kernel operates under.. everybody keeps their own code and thus there is no danger of a company taking the code and running with it to create a closed source competitor.

So actually you might end up seeing both MySQL and PostgreSQL being simulated by this purchase, especially if Oracle tries to kill MySQL. MySQL being fluffed up by the ra-ra pro-Free software developers that use it... and PostgreSQL being fluffed up by the developers of proprietary software that need to find a alternative to MySQL and do not want to pay Oracle for potentially expensive licensing.

Originally posted by tron_1:As far as my understanding goes, HP is an x86 shop, not exactly SPARC happy. I don't know what HP would do with SPARC.

HP is where RISC architectures go to die. It's not that hard to imagine Oracle selling off all the SPARC stuff to HP, who would then extract ever increasing amounts of money for periodic die shrinks.

quote:

Originally posted by BadAndy:Oracle trying to run a hardware business strikes me as a bad idea, Oracle trying to take over Sun's hardware business in it's current state strikes me as an awful idea.

The support infrastructure and the x86 servers seem like they'd be a good addition, simply so they'd have those capabilities in-house. I'm not sure how much Oracle would have to gain from the SPARC stuff, particularly ongoing development there. It's tough to see the point of competing against Intel or IBM there.

There are no doubt significant support obligations to various governments and companies, so I doubt they can just pull the plug on it entirely... but certainly curtail development.

quote:

Originally posted by BadAndy:Oracle's business area is not one I have any expertise in or real connection to, but the marriage of Oracle + Sun strikes me as the shotgun wedding of two entirely alien species to each other ... so impossible it just makes me cringe.

The MySQL business strikes me as something they can use to funnel sales into their own database. They don't have the leverage to force everyone to start paying, but if they leave it well enough alone it would be very good advertising for the higher end stuff they might like to sell.

quote:

Originally posted by BadAndy:Oracle may in fact want that given that I can't see it continuing much of Sun's business lines. But why the heck would Oracle pay that much for Sun .... what do they get for their money?

I imagine they'll unload a lot of the stuff they have no interest in, milking existing support contracts where it makes sense to do so.

Oracle hasn't ever been particularly interested in desktop applications, have they? I remember Oracle PowerBrowser, but that was both awful and short lived. I wonder what they will do with Star/Open Office.

Now IBM should take the 7 billion dollars they didn't use to buy Sun and give it all to establish a non-profit "Java Foundation" (ala Mozilla) to develop and improve the open source Java code (and announce commercial support for the result via their services division) :P

This article reads like a wish list, not a solid analysis. Oracle's only need for OSS is when they can use it as a platform for selling thier DB and middleware products. Expect all decisions relating to Sun's product line, OSS or not, to be based around potential integration with Oracle's product line. Nothing more, nothing less.

Wait a minute, it says in the article that they don't know if Oracle will kill off MySQL...can someone explain to me how they could possibly do this since MySQL is all Open Source? I mean, the source code is all out there and couldn't someone else just pick it all up and continue on with it? Isn't it being released under the GPL protect it from someone killing it? I mean, no one "owns" it do they?

To all those saying they could care less what happens to Sun's IPs and such, you're being incredibly shortsighted. Your preferences, past purchasing trends, etc. mean nothing. The mere existence of alternative software offerings enables one extremely important thing: competition. You can shrug off open source and small-time/indie all you want, but it's there and it's very important on some level (depending on what it is).

I desperately hope ZFS stay alive and well. I'd really like to see good things done with Java, but I agree with the article that perhaps a mobile implementation is rather silly. Plus, on the browser end of things, we're seeing technologies develop away from Java (or, JavaScript which isn't even the same thing). I dunno... I don't actually know what I'm talking about. The smart ones out there will have guess that after one or two sentences.

I'd love to see OpenOffice (with a name change to just OpenOffice) and MySQL stick around as I use both. The human in me doesn't want to learn something new. Haha. The poor person in me doesn't want to use commercial software.

I do wonder what sort of impact this will have on other companies. How will it affect - if at all - Microsoft or Apple? Especially in regards to things like Java. Or, for Apple, the supposed plans to add ZFS to OS X (at least 10.6 Server), or Apple's very-friendly nature with MySQL.

Originally posted by superslav223:Oh heavens Oracle doesn't care about open source! That means thousands of angry basement nerds might swear off using their software! Think of all the nasty slashdot posts they might get! They may even get a scolding from Richard Stallman Quixote!

How ever can Oracle not care when Sun has proven how valuable it is to sink billions into free software?

You're either very bad at sarcasm, or very good at commenting without understanding the subject.

I don't think this article is researched enough. This is not just a corporate buyout, but a buyout during an economic downturn. A case is made for Oracle not Killing MySQL, but they could certainly leave it in limbo, I'm not sure why Ryan Paul singles out OpenSolaris Desktop for this fate, I think most, if not all, of Sun's open source projects will have their support and financing pulled, including Virtual Box and Open Office. and Java ME not competitive with iPhone experience? Talk about comparing Apples and oranges! Do you think smartphone makers are going to migrate to an OPENstep/Darwin platform? Please give me more information about Oracle and less fortunetelling from a FOSS point of view.

Wait a minute, it says in the article that they don't know if Oracle will kill off MySQL...can someone explain to me how they could possibly do this since MySQL is all Open Source?

MySQL existed as corporation that made money from dual licensing it's software.

It distributed MySQL under the GPL license and then sold licenses to proprietary software companies that wanted to use MySQL in their products. So the GPLv2'd version will live on as GPLv2-only while the proprietary companies that purchase licenses for the software will now have to deal with Oracle.

So it's a death for some users, possibly, but not all of them.

quote:

This article reads like a wish list, not a solid analysis. Oracle's only need for OSS is when they can use it as a platform for selling thier DB and middleware products. Expect all decisions relating to Sun's product line, OSS or not, to be based around potential integration with Oracle's product line. Nothing more, nothing less.

There is a natural tendency for software to be 'commoditized'. That is that at the beginning all software is special and unique to one or another company, but as time goes on you can start getting it from all sorts of different sources.

Oracle starting to see that happen in a big big way. Redhat's JBOSS middleware is a big example of it.

So while now Oracle needs open source to provide a platform for it's database and middleware software... eventually open source is going to completely supplant the need for Oracle for most users.

Just like Linux has eliminated the need for Unix (SCO, Solaris, etc) for most people. Sure there will be people that will quite happily pay Oracle for years and years to come, and there are situations were Oracle's database software will be superior to MySQL or other open source databases for the forseeable future... their market share will continue to dwindle down farther and farther as open source gains momentium and capabilities.

So it's going to be very interesting to see how Oracle plans on dealing with this situation.

If they try to embrace open source pro-actively they may take a big hit, but will survive long term. If they try to launch a new proprietary or Oracle-specific OS+database system to try to compete with Linux/OSS then I see them going the same way that Sun did.

It would be sad to see a company like Oracle, that is able to contribute such a splended file system like Btrfs and OCSFv2 to Linux, get railroaded by OSS progress.

Oh, and to all the people jumping to the "this shows that you can't succeed if you make your software open source" conclusion: if I were to make a list of all the closed-source software companies that have failed—whether because of bad luck, bad management, or just plain bad products—can I use it as "proof" that you can't succeed if you make your software closed-source? You can't simply jump on one particular thing and say that it, not any of the other potential factors, was the cause for Sun's demise. I doubt that some of Sun's tech like Java and Solaris and ZFS being available open source was really the big factor here.

Originally posted by WaaMatt:To all those saying they could care less what happens to Sun's IPs and such, you're being incredibly shortsighted. Your preferences, past purchasing trends, etc. mean nothing. The mere existence of alternative software offerings enables one extremely important thing: competition. You can shrug off open source and small-time/indie all you want, but it's there and it's very important on some level (depending on what it is).

I desperately hope ZFS stay alive and well. I'd really like to see good things done with Java, but I agree with the article that perhaps a mobile implementation is rather silly. Plus, on the browser end of things, we're seeing technologies develop away from Java (or, JavaScript which isn't even the same thing). I dunno... I don't actually know what I'm talking about. The smart ones out there will have guess that after one or two sentences.

I don't think so.

Java is alive and well in corporate America. Almost any large corporate website, especially banking, is heavily leveraging Java as a server-side scripting language. It's just not something that is visable to end users.

And Javascript, I expect, is going to regain quite a bit of traction because of the vastly enhanced performance that newer browsers can offer.

I'd love to see OpenOffice (with a name change to just OpenOffice) and MySQL stick around as I use both. The human in me doesn't want to learn something new. Haha. The poor person in me doesn't want to use commercial software.

Both already have forks. People's attitude toward's Sun's governence of open source software ranged from unhappy to indifferent.

MySQL has things like MariaDB and Drizzle.

OpenOffice.org has go-office.org that collects and maintains the various improvements that Linux distributions ship over the default OO.org implimentation.

Originally posted by moep:I just hope Oracle will indeed put ZFS under GPL.Linux + ZFS = one mighty nice combination for a NAS.

And what particular deficiency does Solaris itself have that makes the idea of using Linux with ZFS in a NAS more appealing? I can understand other places where the software isn't likely to get ported over (relies on proprietary code, lack of effort being put into migrating complex codebases to a different API, and such), but for most file and internet serving needs, there's zero difference in capability between the two.

Not trying to start a flamewar over this; just curious why Linux is preferred when Solaris, or even FreeBSD, can already do what you wish for.

Originally posted by moep:I just hope Oracle will indeed put ZFS under GPL.Linux + ZFS = one mighty nice combination for a NAS.

And what particular deficiency does Solaris itself have that makes the idea of using Linux with ZFS in a NAS more appealing? I can understand other places where the software isn't likely to get ported over (relies on proprietary code, lack of effort being put into migrating complex codebases to a different API, and such), but for most file and internet serving needs, there's zero difference in capability between the two.

Not trying to start a flamewar over this; just curious why Linux is preferred when Solaris, or even FreeBSD, can already do what you wish for.

Because. well, Solaris can't do it. Last time I checked Solaris on ARM never existed... which is the dominate platform for NAS stuff, at least in the medium-to-low end of stuff.

As for FreeBSD.. I donno. It's just that Linux has more traction and lots more developers and better hardware support then FreeBSD folks have in this arena. For NAS devices there is pretty much always going to be some sort of kernel hacking to get done. They are not like PCs were you have the solid hand of Microsoft and Intel determining architecture.. people try different things to get better price/performance/efficiency ratios.

then on top of that FreeBSD + ZFS is not going to be mature. Just like nobody is going to be shipping Linux + Ext4 right now or Linux + BTRFS in the near future.

Anyways Linux + BTRFS > Linux + ZFS...

Why? Because Btrfs has comparible feature set and is being developed specifically to suite Linux while ZFS would probably require considurable porting and modification to make work as well. It's just not going to be accepted by the Linux kernel 'just because' it's BSD licensed now.. It's going to have to be a very good fit and work in a way that will be sustainable, pretty much forever. (General Linux policy is that once you have a core file sysem supported like Ext3/XFS/etc that that FS is supported indefinately)

Which means by the time ZFS on Linux is working very well so will btrfs.

Originally posted by drag:Because. well, Solaris can't do it. Last time I checked Solaris on ARM never existed... which is the dominate platform for NAS stuff, at least in the medium-to-low end of stuff.

As for FreeBSD.. I donno. It's just that Linux has more traction and lots more developers and better hardware support then FreeBSD folks have in this arena. For NAS devices there is pretty much always going to be some sort of kernel hacking to get done. They are not like PCs were you have the solid hand of Microsoft and Intel determining architecture.. people try different things to get better price/performance/efficiency ratios.

Ah, yes, if you're targeting anything besides SPARC or x86, Solaris is a non-starter. I was more thinking about larger NAS setups (the 5-10TB RAIDs and such) or the "built from spare parts" NAS. The idea that the one and two drive consumer NAS units had such a booming mod community throwing together custom Linux builds didn't even occur to me, although it probably should have.

But I'd not discount FreeBSD (or even NetBSD) to be up to such a task. If the box is odd enough, the fact Linux has a much larger community around it will help loads (not to mention that the work has probably been done by the outfit that made the box already). For ZFS in FreeBSD? Probably not production grade; ZFS is still being work out in the 8.0-CURRENT branch, so I'd not trust my company's data to it just yet (we keep rather good backups, but having the whole NAS tank means downtime, downtime costs money, yadda-yadda).

I just hope Oracle's attitude towards Sun's OSS is good enough that the developer and user communities can grow. I mean isn't that the real point of open source, to grow a community collaborating on a project that's good for the community? If Oracle can't maintain a healthy lasting relationship with the open source and free software community then that's bad for open source.

Software schmoftware. I want to know what's going to happen to Sun's hardware. I always thought they had excellent hardware engineers - their boxen have always (well...almost always) been very well designed.

Originally posted by lyme:Poor Sun technology, now you will be monitarized and exploited until your a heaping pile on the floor.

Just hope that Oracle doesn't make all that hard work the FOSS community go to waste by making it proprietary. In that case, expect to see protests by both FOSS developers and leaders within the FOSS protest, like Richard Stallman.